It Pay To Advertise!

It was pleasing to see two of Foster’s top selling beer brands, VB and Carlton Draught, were 2 of the top 10 Australian TV commercials as judged by the credible marketing website Anthill Magazine. The VB ad launched in the mid-70’s with the theme “matter of fact I’ve got it now” was used to position VB as a working man’s beer.





The Carlton Draught ad was a block-buster one launched in 2005 which had mass exposure on Australian television and also the internet. This received strong reaction from consumers and the advertising industry. No doubt the success of this format was behind Foster’s recent use of the big ad concept for Victoria Bitter where they have used high profile actors and sportsmen to produce a very entertaining commercial. Once again positioning VB as a beer for the masses.

Although the Qantas advertisement of “still call Australia home” missed out on the top 10 ranking there is a growing momentum that this 10 year old successful theme could be used by the Australian Tourism department to replace the disastrous TV commercial program which greatly offended the English.

I have many memories of Qantas which was frequently used by the Elders’ Directors on their overseas trips. I was also responsible for introducing 4 and 20 pies on the first class Qantas menu on the many trips we did between Melbourne and London during the time of the UK brewery acquisitions.

More recent ex Elders connection to Qantas was the appointment of Paul Rayner (previously Finance Director of Elders Resources Group reporting to Geoff Lord) as a non-executive director of Qantas. Paul spent the previous six years as the number two at British American Tobacco in London and returned to Australia mid 2008.